Asbury Student Awarded Research Funds

February 21, 2011

Asbury University sophomore Matthew Engler has won a 2011 Kentucky Academy of Science Undergraduate Research Program Award. The award will help fund Engler’s proposal titled “A Survey of the Distribution and Habitat Preference of the Crayfish of Hickman and Jessamine Creek Watersheds.”

Later this spring, Engler will suit up in waders and begin visiting 15 sample sites from each of the watersheds to compile a habitat data sheet. After recording the number of specimens, stream width, water temperature, weather conditions and other details, he will present the findings at a Kentucky Academy of Science meeting next fall.

“It’s mainly for conservation purposes, to get a baseline idea of the population,” he says.

The Kentucky Academy of Science is a non-profit organization whose goals are to encourage scientific research, promote the diffusion of scientific knowledge, and unify the scientific interests of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Established in 1914, the Academy is an Affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Academies of Science.